Communication systems are known to comprise communication units, repeaters, peripheral devices and a central processor. Typically, the central processor performs all system wide tasks within the communication system, such as call processing, and establishes the control channel repeater.
Communication networks are known to comprise communication devices, such as repeaters, which are physically connected to a data link, such as a local area network (LAN). Communication networks allow communication devices to transmit messages to other communication devices and receive messages from other communication devices physically connected to the same data link. Since all communication devices physically connected to the data link receive all messages transmitted on the data link, each communication device has its own unique address. This allows a communication device the option of processing only those received messages addressed specifically to it. The unique address also allows a communication device to transmit messages addressed to a specific communication device.
As is known, the method of task communication between repeaters consists of messages sent via a pool of common buffers. All task processors within each repeater have access to the pool of buffers. Because the buffers are unformatted, when a task processor receives a message, it interprets the message according to its protocol. If a task processor were to receive a message in error, it would process the message according to its protocol as if it were a valid message. This may result in improper operation of the communication system. As is also known, this method requires each task processor to know the physical address of the task processors it needs to communicate with. This requires extra overhead to keep track of changes made to the communication system such as, if a repeater is added or removed from the system, or if a peripheral device is added, removed, or changed to another repeater in the communication system.
Therefore a need exists for a method for establishing transparent communication between a limited number of repeaters in a communication system that decouples tasks from hardware and system configurations, provides centralized buffer management, and requires less overhead.